


Everything has Changed

by ChloeOgradyXo



Category: Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, Chicago PD (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-18 00:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21835477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeOgradyXo/pseuds/ChloeOgradyXo
Summary: Josephine, or Josie, Hughes is seventeen-years-old. Her mom was a Master Sergeant in the armed forces but one day, tragedy strikes and, one by one, secrets start to unravel themselves.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

It's a Monday morning at Chicago Roosevelt High School. It's the annual careers fest which means over the next two weeks, the seniors will be receiving talks from different organisations, colleges and employers. Josephine, or Josie, Hughes is walking into the school auditorium. The school's guidance counsellor, Liam, is on the stage talking to Lieutenant Kelly Severide, Captain Matthew Casey, Chief Wallace Boden and PIC Sylvie Brett. When they hear the door close, they all look at her. She walks up onto the stage and joins them.

'Good morning.' Josephine smiles.

'Good morning.' Liam nods. 'This is Josephine or Josie, as she prefers to be called. She's our senior class president.' He introduces Josephine to them. 'Josie, this is Lieutenant Kelly Severide, Captain Matthew Casey, Chief Wallace Boden and Paramedic-in-Charge Sylvie Brett. They're with the CFD, they will be giving the talks and workshops today.'

'It's nice to meet you.' Josephine smiles.

'Have you heard any news on your mom yet?' Liam asks her.

'She's coming home later on today.' Josephine nods. 'I found out at the weekend.'

'That's great news!' Liam grins. Josephine looks at Severide, Boden, Casey and Brett.

'My mom is in the army.' Josephine clarifies. 'She's been gone for 18 months.'

'That must be tough.' Casey sympathises.

'It is.' Josephine nods. 'Especially since I'm not close to my step-dad.I stay with my grandma a lot. I'm closer to her than I am to my step-dad.' There are a few minutes of silence. 'Anyways, do you need anything for this main talk?'

'We have a PowerPoint presentation to go with our talk, Liam said you'd be able to set it up for us.' Severide states. 'We don't have it on a flash drive, but we do have it on a laptop.'

'Sure.' Josephine nods. 'Come with me and I'll set it up.' Severide takes the laptop out of one of the gear bags and follows Josephine to the tech booth at the back of the auditorium. He hands the laptop to Josephine who starts connecting it.

'Liam said that you're also the student head of the musical theatre group.' Severide starts a conversation.

'Yeah.' Josephine looks at Severide and nods. 'We do a musical every semester. This semester it's Hairspray. It's my job to advertise, cast and direct.' She says. 'I've been in every single since middle school, so I've had my fair share.' She adds with a laugh. She pushes the button to put the projector screen down and the connects the HDMI cable from the tech board to the laptop and turns it on. She steps aside so that Severide can log in. Once Severide has set the PowerPoint up, Josephine steps back in and duplicates the PowerPoint slide from the laptop to the projector screen. They look up to make sure that it's projected correctly. 'There we go.' Josephine smiles. She picks up the clicker, plugs the flash drive for it into the laptop and hands the clicker to Severide. 'All done.' 

'Thank you.' Severide nods. Josephine's phone then rings. She gets it out and looks at the caller ID. Recognising the number as from her mom's army base, she smiles. 

'It's my mom.' She looks up at Severide. She answers the call and puts the phone to her ear. 'Mom, hey.' 

' **Hey, JoJo.** ' Hannah, Josephine's mom, replies. 

'Mom, what's wrong?' Josephine asks. 'You only call me JoJo when something's wrong.' 

' **Honey, they extended my deployment.** ' Hannah breaks the bad news.

'Mom.' Josephine states.

' **I know.** ' 

'Mom, they keep doing this.' Josephine says, her eyes prickling with tears.

' **I know.** ' Hannah repeats.

'I miss you.' Josephine voice breaks. 

' **I miss you too.** ' Hannah replies. ' **I'll be home for Christmas. I promise.** ' Josephine hears Hannah being called away. ' **I've got to go but I'll try and call you tonight. I love you.** ' 

'Love you too.' The line then goes dead. Josephine slowly puts her phone back into her pocket and clears her throat. 'Erm - we better get back to the others, Liam will want to talk through the structure of the day.'

'You okay?' Severide questions. 

'Yeah.' Josephine nods, wiping the tears from her eyes. 'Let's go.' They both walk back down to the stage and rejoin Casey, Boden, Brett and Liam. 

'Josie, what's wrong?' Liam asks the young girl. Josie just shakes her head. 'Your mom?'

'She just called.' Josephine states. 'Her deployment has been extended. Again.' 

'Josie-' 

'It's the third time they've extended it.' Josephine says. 'I miss her. I miss our girl's nights, our movie nights, our shopping sprees - I just want my mom back.' 

'Did she say when she'll be back?' Liam queries. 

'She just said that she'll be home for Christmas but the way that things have gone, I doubt it.' Josephine responds.

'Josie, you've got to have faith.' Liam reassures her. 'Your mom loves you and she'll be doing everything in her power to get home for you.'

'I know.' Josephine nods. 'Erm- is there anything else that needs setting up?' 

'We have some equipment to show, so we need a table to put them on,' Boden says, 'and some microphones, preferably handsfree.' 

'I can do that.' Josephine nods. She looks at Liam. 'How long do we have?' Liam looks at his watch.

'About half an hour until first period and then another half an hour until everyone is brought in here.' Liam tells her.

'So an hour.' Josephine laughs with a smile on her face.

'I just did it to see if it would put a smile on your face and it worked.' Liam grins. 'I'll go and get the microphones from the tech booth. There are a couple of tables in the left-wing.' He then walks off to get the microphones. 

'We'll help you with the tables.' Casey offers.

'Thanks.' Josephine smiles. They all walk to the left-wing of the stage and find the table. 'One is on wheels, the other two we'll have to physically lift and take onto the stage.' Brett goes to the table on wheels, Severide and Boden go to one of the other tables and Casey and Josephine go to the third table. After a couple of minutes, the tables are set up on the stage. Liam rejoins them on the stage with the microphones. 

'I have no idea how these things work.' Liam laughs handing the microphones to Josephine. 'I need to run to my office to get the paperwork for today.' He adds. 'Will you be okay?' He asks Josephine. 

'Yeah.' Josephine nods. Liam then walks off and Josephine turns back to Casey, Severide, Boden and Brett. 'With the microphones, you just put the wire up your shirt so that's out of the way, clip the microphone part on the neckline of the shirt and then put the battery pack in your pocket.' She hands them each a microphone.

'I'm sorry about your mom.' Brett says to Josephine.

'I'm used to it.' Josephine responds. 'She's a Master Sergeant so there's always the risk of her deployment being extended or being called away as soon as she gets back.' 

'How many tours has she done?' Boden queries.

'A lot.' Josephine replies. 'She enlisted when she was 18, had me a little over a year later and then went back. I don't know much about my birth father except for the fact that my mom met him on her first deployment.'

'How come you're not close with your step-dad?' Casey wonders. 

'We're completely different people.' Josephine replies. 'He's more "stay at home, eat and drink all day" whereas I'm more "go to the gym, help people and eat healthily". Our personalities clash all the time which is why I like to stay with my grandma. We do pretty much the same things I would usually do with my mom.' She continues. 'Liam has helped me through all of this since I started at this school. He knows what it's like to have a family in the armed forces. He's also stopped me from killing myself on a couple of occasions.' She sees all four of them looking at her sympathetically. 'I was diagnosed with depression when I was twelve.'

'That's young.' Severide says. 

'Yeah,' Josephine sighs and nods, 'and it's just gotten worse.' 

~~

It has been a couple of hours. Josephine is sitting in her workshop with Casey. It's getting to the end of the session and so Casey is taking questions. Jason, one of the boys raises his hand and Casey points at him. 

'How many babies have been left at your firehouse?' Jason asks.

'We've had quite a few.' Casey nods. 'We've also had little kids left at our firehouse and people come to us all the time when they are in crisis.' Everyone then hears the door open, being curious, everyone looks to see who has just walked in. Josephine smiles when she sees who has just walked in with Liam.

'Mom!' She exclaims. She jumps up from her seat, runs to her mom and gives her a massive hug. 'I thought your deployment was extended?' She asks when they part. 

'I thought you'd be more surprised to see me if you weren't expecting me.' Hannah smiles. 

'I've spoken to the principal and he's agreed to let you go early so that you can enjoy some time with your mom but he expects you back tomorrow.' Liam informs her. 

'Thank you.' Josephine smiles and nods.

~~

A few days have passed. It's 10 pm. Police cars are parked outside of a house and the area has been cordoned off with red tape. An ambulance is also on the scene. Josephine is sat on the edge of the ambulance platform. The Intelligence Unit, comprised of Sergeant Hank Voight, Detective Jay Halstead, Detective Hailey Upton, Officer Adam Ruzek, Officer Kevin Atwater and Officer Vanessa Rojas and Officer Kim Burgess, pull up and gather together, Patrol Officer Garcia walk up to them.

'Thirty-five-year-old female. Multiple GSWs to the head, chest and abdomen. Her daughter,' he points to Josephine, 'found her and called it in. She hasn't said a word and we can't find any ID so we don't know her name and we haven't been able to ID the victim. The medics want to take her to Med and get her checked over but they wanted to wait in case you want to speak to her.' 

'We'll speak to her once we've seen the victim.' Voight nods. Garcia leads them all up into the house.

'There are no signs of forced entry.' Garcia shakes his head.

'She let the killer in.' Kim states. 

'It looks that way.' Garcia nods. He leads them up to the master bedroom which is where Hannah was killed. Jay takes one look at her and gasps. 

'What is it?' Hailey asks him. Everyone turns to face him.

'I erm - I - I-' Jay stutters.

'Spit it out, Halstead.' Voight says impatiently. 

'I know her.' Jay states.


	2. Chapter 2

Garcia leads intelligence up into the house.

'There are no signs of forced entry.' Garcia shakes his head.

'She let the killer in.' Kim states.

'It looks that way.' Garcia nods. He leads them up to the master bedroom which is where Hannah was killed. Jay takes one look at her and gasps.

'What is it?' Hailey asks him. Everyone turns to face him.

'I erm - I - I-' Jay stutters.

'Spit it out, Halstead.' Voight says impatiently. 'I know her.' Jay states.

'How?' Voight questions. 

'We dated.' Jay replies. 'Briefly. Years ago. Her name is Hannah Hughes. We were also deployed together.'

'Do you know the daughter?' Kim asks. 

'No.' Jay shakes his head. 

'Right.' Voight sighs. 'Rojas, Upton, you two go and speak with the daughter and go with her to Med. Halstead and Burgess, knock on doors and see if anyone saw or heard anything suspicious. Ruzek and Atwater, start bagging and tagging.' Everyone nods and splits up. Vanessa and Hailey walk down to the ambulance. The two paramedics, Desmond and Courtney, walk over to them.

'Patrol said she called it in.' Hailey says. 

'Yeah.' Desmond nods. 'Mom was DOA.'

'Is that her blood?' Vanessa asks, noticing the blood on Josephine's hands and clothes.

'No.' Courtney shakes her head. 'When we got here she was trying to save her mom. It took five of us to pry her off of her mom.' 

'She hasn't said anything since then.' Desmond adds. 'Have you been able to ID the mom?' 

'Yeah.' Hailey nods. 'Her name is Hannah Hughes.' She continues. 'We'd like to speak to the daughter and then once we're done, you can take her to Med. I'll come with and Rojas will follow.'

'Let us know when you're done.' Courtney nods before walking away with Desmond. Hailey And Vanessa walk up to Josephine.

'Hi.' Hailey starts. 'I'm Detective Upton, but you can call me Hailey and this is Officer Rojas.' 

'Call me Vanessa.' Vanessa adds. Hailey sits next to Josephine. 

'We're sorry about your mom.' Hailey sympathises. 

'It's not my blood.' Josephine whispers, shaking her head. She keeps her eyes locked on the floor. 'It's not my blood.' She repeats. 'It's not my blood. It's not my blood.' She keeps repeating.

'What's your name?' Vanessa asks. 

'It's not my blood.' Josephine looks up at Vanessa. 'It's not my blood.' She looks at Hailey. Hailey can see that Josephine is becoming more and more distressed. Hailey waves Desmond and Courtney back over and stands up.

'Get her to Med.' Hailey tells them. 'We're not going to get much out of her in this state. We'll call ahead and get psychiatry to meet us there.' Courtney and Desmond nod, help Josephine into the back of the ambulance and close the doors.

~

Doctors Will Halstead and Daniel Charles are waiting in the ambulance bay at Chicago Med. The ambulance pulls into the ambulance bay and the back doors swing open. Hailey jumps out and helps Courtney with the gurney. Josephine has been put into wrist restraints and is still whispering "it's not my blood".

'Jane Doe. Roughly sixteen years old.' Courtney states. 

'This is no Jane Doe. We all know her here.' Dr Charles shakes his head as they wheel Josephine into the ED. 'Her name is Josephine Hughes. She's one of my patients. What happened?' 

'Her mom was killed.' Hailey informs her. 'Josephine was the one who found her.' 

'She became extremely agitated en route and tried getting up multiple times so we put her in some wrist restraints.' Desmond says. They wheel her into the treatment bay, undo her restraints and transfer her over to the bed. 'No physical trauma and vitals are all within the normal ranges. However, we inserted a cannula just in case.' When Desmond and Courtney go to reapply the restraints, Dr Charles stops them.

'Leave the restraints.' Dr Charles tells them. Courtney and Desmond nod and walk out of the room, taking the gurney with them. 

'I'll leave this with you.' Will tells Dr Charles. 'I'll go and get her records and send a nurse in to clean her up.' Will then leaves, sliding the door over behind him. 

'Josie, it's Dr Charles.' Dr Charles says calmly. 'Josie, it's okay, you're safe.' Seeing that she's not calming down, he rummages through the medication drawer and finds a syringe of sedative. 'It's okay, I'm going to give you something to calm you down and give you a little bit of sleep.' He connects the syringe to the cannula and pushes the medication through. After a couple of minutes, Josephine slowly stops talking and her eyes begin to shut. He walks out of the room where April is waiting.

'Dr Halstead asked me to calm and clean your patient up.' April tells him. 

'Yeah.' Dr Charles nods. 'I've just given her ten of haloperidol, if she starts to wake up, page me.' April nods and walks into the treatment room. Dr Charles joins Vanessa and Hailey who are talking at the nurse's station. 

'Josephine Hughes is your patient?' Hailey questions.

'Let's go and talk in here.' Dr Charles motions to the meeting room. They all walk in and sit around the table. 

'I diagnosed Josie with depression when she was twelve.' Dr Charles tells them. 'She's been in and out of psychiatric units since then.' 

'Do you know what caused the depression?' Vanessa asks. 

'Her mom's deployment had just been extended by six months. It was the first time Josie could really understand what was going on.' Dr Charles explains. 'She had run into the middle of the road and got clipped by a car. The self-harm and suicide attempts were increasing and six months later, I gave her the official diagnosis.' 

'What do you know about the mom? Any enemies?' Hailey queries.

'I don't know much.' Dr Charles shakes his head. 'She was a master sergeant in the army. She only got back a few days ago.' He continues. 'Her step-dad Leonard would bring Josie in for her appointments if her mom was deployed. Leonard and Josie aren't close. They never have been.'

'Do you have a contact number for the step-dad?' Hailey asks. 

'We're going to have to call him anyway but I'll pull up his number from Josie's medical records and pass it on to you.' Dr Charles responds. Will knocks on the door and walks in, they all look at him.

'Sorry to interrupt.' He apologises. 'I've just tried called Leo Hughes. The number is out of service so I called her grandma. She's on her way.' Dr Charles looks back at Hailey and Vanessa. 

'Excuse me.' He excuses himself. He stands up and walks out of the room to talk with Will. Hailey and Vanessa look at each other.

'Looks like we have our first suspect.' Hailey tells Vanessa.


	3. Chapter 3

Will knocks on the door and walks in, they all look at him.

'Sorry to interrupt.' He apologises. 'I've just tried called Leo Hughes. The number is out of service so I called her grandma. She's on her way.' Dr Charles looks back at Hailey and Vanessa.

'Excuse me.' He excuses himself. He stands up and walks out of the room to talk with Will. Hailey and Vanessa look at each other.

'Looks like we have our first suspect.' Hailey tells Vanessa. They both stand up and Vanessa gets her phone out of her pocket.

'I'll get the info we need on Leonard Hughes and send out a BOLO.' Vanessa says. Meanwhile, Dr Charles and Will are in the Doctors Lounge talking. 

'I'm going to place Josie under a psych hold.' Dr Charles tells him. 'We both know what happened the last time something bad happened to her mom. This is a thousand times worse. I just want to make sure that she's not going to try and kill herself.' 

'Good call.' Will nods. 'I did examine her for any cuts, there are a few fresh ones but the majority of them are healed.' He then looks out the window and sees Mary, Josephine's Grandma and Hannah's mom, walk into the ED and he sighs. 'Her Grandma's here.' Dr Charles also looks out of the window. 

'I'm sure Detective Upton and Officer Rojas will want to speak to her.' Dr Charles says. 'Let's go.' They both walk out of the Doctor's Lounge and to Mary.

'Mary.' Will nods.

'What's going on? Why's Josie here? Why couldn't Hannah call me?' Mary interrogates. 

'Let's go somewhere more private.' Dr Charles tells her. Mary nods and Will and Dr Charles lead her to the room where Hailey and Vanessa are. They close the door behind them.

'What's going on?' Mary asks. 

'Mary, this is Officer Vanessa Rojas and Detective Hailey Upton. They're with the Intelligence Unit.' Dr Charles introduces Hailey and Vanessa to Mary. 'This is Mrs Mary Johnson. Hannah's mom.' 

'Let's sit down.' Will says. They all sit around the table.

'Mrs Johnson-' Hailey starts.

'Call me Mary.' Mary interjects. 

'Mary.' Hailey starts again. 'Earlier tonight your granddaughter arrived home and found her mom, your daughter, with multiple GSWs. She dies on scene, most likely before Josephine got home. I'm sorry for your loss.' Mary sits speechless.

'Mary?' Dr Charles says quietly after a few minutes of silence.

'I - erm - I prepared myself for this day when she first enlisted. The day that I'm told that my daughter won't make it home. I just didn't think that she'd be home when this happened.' Mary says. 'Hows Josie?' 

'She's sedated.' Will replies. 'We want to keep her as calm as possible so that she doesn't try to harm herself.' 

'Can I see her?' Mary questions.

'Of course.' Dr Charles nods. He stands up with Mary.

'Before you go, can we get your contact details?' Vanessa asks. Mary looks at Will. 

'I'll give them to you.' Will tells Vanessa and Hailey. 

'Isn't that against protocol?' Hailey asks confused.

'I've known Josie for a while, everyone here knows her, and Dr Charles has known her since she was twelve, as he said.' Will explains. 'She's given us consent to pass on any information to the police or other services if necessary.' 

'And I'm fine with it.' Mary adds. 

'Okay then.' Hailey nods. 'We will be in touch in the next day or so. Again, we're very sorry for your loss.' Mary simply nods and leaves with Dr Charles. 'Will.' 

'Yeah?' Will replies.

'You say you've known Josie for quite a while right?' Hailey queries. 

'About four and a half years ago.' Will nods.

'Have you noticed that she looks a little like Jay?' Hailey asks him.

'No, they don't.' Will laughs, dismissing her. 'She looks more like her mom than anyone else.' He adds. 'I have to get back to work. I'll get Mary's number and address for you.' He then stands up and leaves.

'I'm not crazy, right?' Hailey asks Vanessa. 'Josephine looks like Jay. Like, there's not even a small resemblance. It's a lot. It's freaky. Tell me it's not just me.'

'It's not just you.' Vanessa shakes her head. 

~

It's the next day, Intelligence are searching the Hughes residence for evidence. Adam and Jay are searching through Hannah's office. Adam spots a frame with a picture of Josephine in and picks it up.

'Yo, Halstead.' Adam gets Jay's attention. Jay looks at him. 'Josephine looks a lot like you.' Jay walks over to him and looks at the picture. 'The others have mentioned it too.' Jay takes a closer look at the picture.

'We share the same eye colour and both have freckles.' Jay laughs. 'That's it.' Adam puts the frame back down. 'It doesn't mean anything.' He goes back to searching the bookshelf cabinets when he spots a picture of Hannah when she was younger with Josephine. He slowly walks towards where the frame is and take a closer look. He's that zoned out that he doesn't realise that Adam is trying to get his attention.

'Jay!' Adam shouts. Jay snaps back to reality. Adam is now stood next to Jay. 'What is it?' 

'She-,' Jay starts, pointing to Josephine in the picture, 'she looks like my mom.' He tells Adam.

'This was in the desk.' Adam hands Jay an envelope. 'It looks like it's addressed to you.' He looks at the address written on it. 

'This is my own address.' Jay states, looking at Adam. 'From when I used to live in Canaryville.' 

'What are you going to do?' Adam asks. 

'I'm going to go find Voight.' Jay responds before walking off. He walks into the living room where Voight is. 

'Sarge.' Jay calls Voight over. Voight walks over to him. 'Adam found this in the desk.' He holds up the envelope. 'It's addressed to me. It's got to be an old letter because it's got my Canaryville address on it.

'Do you know why she'd send you a letter?' Voight questions. 

'No.' Jay shakes his head. 

'Haven't you opened it?' Voight asks.

'I wanted to check with you first.' Jay answers. Voight just glares at him. 'Right.' Jay says. He opens the envelope, takes the letter out and reads it. After he has read it, he folds it back up and looks at Voight. 'Josephine, she's erm- she's my daughter.' 


End file.
